Honoring Stepdads on Father ’s Day

It’s June. With Father’s Day approaching, the question again arises on the internet about whether to honor the Stepfathers and how. I wish the day would be renamed to something more inclusive. Fatherly Day? Male Role Model Day? All Male Nurturers Day? Whatever. Stepfathers who do what’s required to be real Stepdads deserve recognition and appreciation too. Stepfather families comprise about 8.4% of U.S. married couples with children. That may not sound like much, but it translates to 16.5 million men being Stepdads and 4.1 million children who live with their biological mom and a Stepdad. That’s a lot of fathers and children! Just as with any family structure, there are tremendous differences in how blended families operate. Sadly, there are some families in which the Stepfather remains at a distance from his wife’s children by a prior partnership or marriage either because of his own issues or because the mother won’t allow it. In such families, both the man and the kids miss out on the potential for a significant and mutually rewarding relationship. The mom misses out on having a partner in every sense of the word. But in many other families, Stepdads do develop close emotional relationships with the children. They understand that the quality of the relationship with their stepchildren is really up to them. Just as it takes more than biology to make a father into a Dad, it takes more than marrying a kid’s mother to change a stepfather into a Stepdad. When he ...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Children and Teens Family Parenting Blended Families Child Development coparenting Divorce father's day Role Models Step Parents Source Type: blogs